The Sixth Station (22 page)

Ignoring them as only a New Yorker can do, I instead found a reasonable-looking woman, dressed unreasonably in what had to be the best knockoff Chanel I’d ever seen, manning a knockoff-purse stall. I asked where I might find the address of Mr. Cesur. Forget three stalls in, it was actually past leather and over in carpets.

She directed me “two aisles down on the left.” The address was not what I had expected, but what I should have anticipated: Istanbul Carpets II by Mustafah Cesur.

Oh, crap. It’s a carpet shop! I’ve seen
Midnight Express
—how could I have been
that
naive?

I paused outside the shop. The call had been a come-on, I realized.

The SOB wants to sell me a freaking rug. Sadowski’s “contact” is a damned rug shop! I knew this was too good to be true.

A thin, wiry man opened the glass door to the shop while I was still trying to figure out what to do. “May I ask you to step inside and enjoy a glass of tea, madam?”

“Thank you, but the last thing I want or need right now is a rug.”

I could feel we were being watched, as everyone watches everyone in that market.

“Ah, but I only offer tea. I don’t expect you to purchase anything.”

“Right.”

“Perhaps you care to see Istanbul’s only
real
magic carpet?”

“Perhaps not,” I snapped. “And
perhaps
I have no time and no money for a rug. And perhaps I don’t appreciate that you tricked me into coming here,” I continued, clearly forgetting that I was in Turkey and not New York, where I could get away with that kind of smart-ass lip.

“Father Jacobi isn’t in there, is he?”

“Yes, of course he is.”

“What’s he doing? Sitting on the magic carpet?”

I turned on my heel, indignant, as though I had somewhere to go and as though I didn’t have a price on my head. My short fuse had gotten the better of me again, and although I knew I was standing inside an ancient souk full of men who I thought looked like they’d sell their sisters for a good price, I still couldn’t help mouthing off.

Shut up! You’re a skanky-looking redhead with a price on her head who is now probably worth her weight in gold. And after all the baked goods you consumed over the last few days—your worth must be escalating faster than the gold market in 2011.

The mild-mannered rug salesman grabbed me by the arm from the back and jerked me hard, against my will, into the dark interior of the shop. Rugs were rolled and folded in giant piles, and he expertly pushed me through a small pathway down the middle of them all. I could feel them and smell them more than I could actually see them—it was that dark.

With my arm held tightly behind my back, I was shoved down onto a small wooden chair, and the rug man released his grip. As I groped the wooden table in front of me, a hand grabbed mine from the opposite side and held it tight. A black shadowy figure in a hooded cloak leaned in close. “Oh shit,” I heard myself say.
The grim reaper.

I couldn’t see much as my eyes tried adjusting to the dimness inside. It got even darker when Cesur pulled the curtains shut around the display window in the front of the shop. He then pulled down the louvered metal gates and it became pitch black inside.

Locked in!

Cesur lit a candle and then walked around the shop pulling ceiling-lamp chains down to lower glass lamps, lighting the candles inside, giving the room the appearance of a deliberately set scene. One in which I was the heroine who needed rescuing.

“Goddammit, let me out, you freak!”

“Somehow one would expect the Chosen One to be a bit more refined,” the dark figure said, his voice old and with an affected international air to it, as he put his cold hand on top of mine. His bony fingers tightened around my right hand in what felt like a death grip. “But, ahh, Headquarters never fails to surprise, do they,
Miss Russo
?”

20

“Who?” I rasped.

“Headquarters,” the man repeated as he leaned in closer. I got a look at him, and he at me. Cesur, or the man I assumed was Mr. Cesur, pulled down the last chain on a candle lamp hanging over the table and lit it. He then set down what appeared to be a silver tray upon which sat a silver teapot and two glasses. The smell of boiled apples filled the already spicy-fragrant air of the carpet shop.

I could almost make out the man across the table from me now, who still had the death grip on my hand. He finally released it, leaned in, and said, “May I offer you some apple tea, Miss Russo? It’s quite good.” He poured us each a small glass.

That again!

“Excuse me, but you know who
I
am, but I’m afraid I don’t have the privilege of knowing the name of the person offering me tea after nearly having my arm broken. And you sir, are…?”

“I am Father Paulo Jacobi,” he said.

Under the hood I could discern a man, perhaps eighty; thin, with heavy-lidded, rheumy blue eyes. He wore a black cassock, similar in style although not in color to the kind worn by monks. A large gold and jewel-encrusted cross of a type I’d never seen glittered dramatically on a heavy gold chain on his chest. All four posts of the cross had
v
-shaped wings that curved outward.

“Aha. Father Jacobi. So I see,” I said, my meaning both literal and figurative.

“I’m afraid you seem to ‘see’ as well as a blind man,” he replied.

“Okaaaay.” I pushed the glass of hot tea away from me, and it spilled on the table.

“Miss Russo, may I remind you that you are no longer in New York. Manners count for much here, and yours seem to be sorely lacking.”

“Excuse me? You are the one who had me dragged into this place kicking and screaming. In what country—or perhaps what time period—is
that
considered mannerly behavior, Father?”

Did you sell that little girl to some sex ring way back in the eighties, you freak?

This old bastard was really beginning to tick me off, my fear turning back to good old-fashioned New Yorker intolerance. No wonder Maureen had sort of warned me about him.

My crack about
his
having bad manners seemed to bring him back to reality—or civility at least—and he turned cordial on a dime.

Slime bag.

“Please. Let us begin once more then,” he said, reaching for my hand.

“No, not that maneuver again! I prefer to keep my typing fingers intact, thank you very much.”

He won.

Fast for an old creep.

This time he held it gently and turned my hand over several times the way a palm reader might, studying it. He then did something incredibly creepy: He lifted it and, yes,
kissed it
!

When I snatched my hand back from him and looked at it, I could see a red trickle coming down the center of my palm.
Damn!
It had started to bleed. But strangely there was no cut, puncture mark, or scratch that I could see.

“What the hell?”

“No, not hell, Miss Russo. Anything
but.
” With that Father Paulo got down on his knees before me. “You are indeed the Chosen One!” he cried, in a sort of ecstatic state. Mr. Cesur bent his head, made a double sign of the cross, and got down on his knees as well.

In, I assumed, devil-worshipper tongue (which turned out only to be Turkish), they began chanting, something like,
“Tan ree I yidder, Tan ree buy’d a car, tan ree eclipse the sun,”
over and over again.

I later learned—via Google Translate—that it was probably:
“Tanrı iyidir. Tanri büyüktür, Tanrı elçisidir korur!”
“God is good. God is great. God bless the messenger!” That would be me apparently.

He—they—were insane. Clearly.

“The Chosen One needs a Band-Aid,” I said. “I cut my hand somehow. You didn’t bite it, did you?”

I’m thinking AIDS, I’m thinking vampire. I’m thinking this is worse than being a fugitive with a price on my head. Get the
hell
out of here. Somehow.

Never having had someone kneel before me—other than, say, Donald, when he was half in the bag and singing to me in what he thought was French on our wedding night—I was completely at odds about what to do.

“Ah, I could use a Band-Aid,” I repeated.

Nothing. So I went for the idiotic.

“Rise!” I declared, like Elizabeth to Essex. It was worth a try—right?

It worked. The two men got off their knees and stood before me.

“Do you have a Band-Aid?” I asked again, now sucking on my palm to stop the bleeding.

“A Band-Aid will never stanch the blood of
Christ,
” Father Paulo declared.

“I think it’s just a cut, really.”

Mr. Cesur brought me a cloth, which he wrapped around my hand as a tourniquet. When I unwrapped the thing two minutes later, the blood was stanched. “See? The blood of Christ has stopped,” I said, as Jacobi and Cesur stared trancelike.

“Miss Russo, it is the stigmata—the
sign.
The unmistakable sign we have all been waiting for. You are the Chosen One we have waited for. The only one who can save the world.”

“I’m just a reporter. I can’t save the world. Seriously.”

He looked at me somewhat bemused by my—what?—naïveté. He continued as though I hadn’t just made this giant concession to my inability to save the world from destruction.

He picked up my hand again and said, “Look, there is no mark. It’s as though it had never happened. You can’t deny the truth of what happened to you.”

It was just a cut, for God’s sake. But don’t turn down an interview, now that the old coot’s your willing servant! You may even get out of here without being killed.

“Yes, I guess now that you mention it … okay, it was the stigmata,” I said pulling out my notebook. “And please, Father Jacobi, sit down, for goodness’ sake.” He pretended to smile at my lame joke and showed a mouthful of yellowish teeth. I even hit the “record” button on Sadowski’s phone. For once, I really wanted a record of somebody’s own words
in
their own words.

Cesur brought over a lit
nargile
—a water pipe, and Jacobi took a long hit and offered it to me.

“Is it hashish?”

He laughed—laughed! “No, just tobacco and fruit.” I took a drag (what the hell) and was amazed that it tasted like I was smoking apples, but within minutes the buzz I got off it was not like anything I’d ever experienced after eating a Golden Delicious. (Turns out the water filters the tobacco in these pipes in a way that makes the nicotine hit quite sensational.)

“Miss Russo, as was foretold, fate brought you here.”

Not to mention running from the law after being accused of murder.

“Only you will
know—
when the time is right—what to do to prevent worldwide catastrophe. I only have the honor of being your historian. The ignorant are damned to repeat history, as you know. I can’t arm you with the weapons, but I can arm you with the truth.”

“The truth of…”

“The true story of the birth thirty-three years ago of the Son of the Son. He who was born from the womb of a thirteen-year-old virgin.”

I’ll be a son of a bitch!

Again, as though reading my mind, Jacobi took a long hit of the pipe, handed it to me, and said, “No, we are not monsters, Miss Russo; we are warriors and servants.”

“Of…?”

“Why, of God, of course.”

“God told you to impregnate a thirteen-year-old child?”

“She was twelve at the time of conception, actually. The cloning.”

I felt bile rising in my throat. Was it the tobacco or was it the story? Both.

My God. Jurassic Park for Jesus.

Cesur brought out a tray of
mezzas—
Turkish appetizers—and laid them on the table and took the pipe from Jacobi. We were definitely in here for the long haul. And now, even disgusted as I was, I too was in all the way. Perhaps I could finally discover the whereabouts—if she was still alive, that is—of little Theotokos.

I swear that was
really
what I was thinking. I didn’t even really absorb that crap about saving the world. I only wanted to save one now-grown woman from what I assumed was captivity. And clear my name. And win a Pulitzer.

And I was wrong.

21

“Okay, then, where do we begin?”

“First we eat,” Jacobi said, blessing the tray of food and a carafe of delicious Turkish white wine. “We need to be nourished in our bodies, not just our souls.”

Is this what you said to the little girl you kidnapped for your disgusting purposes?

We finished the rest of the meal more or less in silence. I realized that the old guy needed to get his strength back before embarking on his wild tale.

When we were finished, Cesur cleaned off the table, and laid down a pristine piece of exquisite white linen that looked like an altar cloth you see in a Catholic church. He then carefully put down a small wooden box. Jacobi opened it to reveal a test tube surrounded by satin. The tube was filled with blood that looked fresh.

He picked it up gingerly, made the double sign of the cross (that again), and handed it to me.

“Sorry, I’m a bit squeamish,” I said, refusing to touch the thing.

He then held the tube aloft and sang in a rapturous, strong voice: “Blessed is the blood of Demiel ben Yusef, Son of the Son of our Lord and Savior.”

Then, with his eyes closed and beginning to drop tears, he proclaimed: “His blood is drink indeed. He who eats His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Him, and Him in You. As the living Father sent Him through
me,
we live because of the Father. So he who feeds on Him will live
because
of Him!”

Father Paulo then waved a hand, and Cesur brought a bottle of wine and what looked like two gold chalices and filled both. He helped Paulo to stand, and the old priest this time made a double sign of the cross over the wine goblets, handed me one, and said, “It’s not poison, my dear, it’s the blood of our Lord.”